FORT SMITH, Ark. (February 12, 2015) – A season-high 18 points by
Ridrell Holman was not quite enough for Lubbock Christian to overcome Arkansas-Fort Smith Thursday night at the Stubblefield Center, as the Lions clawed their way to a 72-69 win over the Chaps to make their way into five-way tie along with LCU for first place within the Heartland Conference.
The Lion victory and Chap defeat now places the two teams atop the standings along with Rogers State, Texas-Permian Basin and St. Mary's, setting up a pivotal five-game finishing stretch to the conference slate.
Playing the entire 40 minutes of the contest, Holman connected on eight of his 14 shot attempts while leading Chap scorer
A.J. Luckey, still recovering from an ankle injury suffered last week in the win against Oklahoma Christian, supplied 14 points off of the bench in 15 minutes of play.
A Luckey layup with 3:21 remaining in the contest sliced the Lion lead to 55-51 before Seth Youngblood came through with a dagger of a three-pointer less than a minute later to put UAFS (14-9, 10-5) up by seven. Twelve seconds later, Luckey was fouled on three-point attempt and sank the trio of shots to again place the Chaps (13-9, 10-4) within four.
Youngblood countered with a pair from the line to give the Lions 60-54 edge with 2:19 on the clock. Luckey then drained a shot from deep to make it a one possession game and 48 seconds left to play before
Marcos Schuster came up with a huge steal and converted his theft into a layup to close the gap to within a point and 39 seconds to go.
Youngblood again came through with two successful attempts from the foul line to extend the UAFS lead to 62-59 and 25 seconds remaining. On the next Chap possession, LCU worked for a final game-tying shot, but Holman's try was off of the mark.
The Lions were led by Alex Cooper's 16 points, while Youngblood recorded 14, Kenny Martin posted 14 along with a game-high 14 rebounds, and DaVaunta Thomas added 11 points.
The Chaps travel to battle Rogers State Saturday at 3 p.m. in Claremore, Okla.
